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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
“The … exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.’
Act_11:23
But how shall we ‘cleave’?
I. Lay it down well with yourself, that it needs just as much grace to carry it on, as ever it did to begin.—And it is right—if ever you asked for yourself converting grace—to ask just as earnestly for continuing grace. Perhaps some, whom you know, would not have fallen if they had done that. Perhaps you yourself would not have fallen if you had done that! True ‘He that hath begun a good work, will also perform it to the day of Christ.’ But this is the way in which He will perform it, He puts it into our hearts—from moment to moment—to seek grace to go on.
II. Never relax in any religious duty because you are older, or because you have gone a little way in the Christian path. Do not think that now you are to pray less often; or to pray shorter prayers; or to study your Bible less; or to come to Holy Communion less frequently; or to be less guarded in society, or in your own family. Be very jealous over the least symptoms of the slightest declension; remember, the tendency of everything is, by the law of gravitation, to run down. Therefore, whatever you may do, remember your enemy is always watching for opportunities; and grace is lost and souls perish, not by one great fall, but by a series of gradual weakening of the spiritual tone you get down, little by little, to lower levels. Keep your standard high; and be sure of this, that increase is the only possible way not to decrease.
III. To ‘cleave’ to any person or to any thing in which Christ is, is to ‘cleave’ to Christ—If you believe that Christ is in any one you know, draw near to that person, draw nearer. Cultivate the friendship of that person. Whatever work has most of Christ in it, give yourself most to that work. It is not an abstract Christ with which we have to do; He is a real, living, personal Christ. ‘Cleave to Him’ as a Brother. And He is a Christ in His people; and He is a Christ in His Church; and He is a Christ in the work He gives you to do, Find Him there; see Him there; serve Him there; ‘cleave to Him’ there.
Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration‘The great bane of by far the majority of people is, that they are living—at least as far as their religion is concerned—an aimless life! If the “heart” be without “purpose,” how can the life have an aim? The “heart” is a strange thing. It is like a very complicated machine, which carries within it tremendous powers. If those powers are left to work loosely, without government, without direction, the confusion, the distraction, the misery is incalculable. But gather them to a point—concentrate them—use them for their proper and appointed purpose; and the force for good is immense! All the “heart” wants is first an object suited to it; then a distinct pointing to that object; and then a fixing. But so long as you go on without any earnest intention, or with some end which does not collect and employ the energies with which you are endowed, your affections and your talents will only run to waste: they will be all in conflict; they will prey one upon another; they will do only mischief; they will be rather tormentors, than benefits, both to yourselves and to everybody else.’